Alexei Sisulu Abrahams
I research information manipulation and cybersecurity using big data and social science methods. My current interest is the design of digital observatories to facilitate monitoring of and investigation into the health of media ecosystems. My research has been published at outlets including Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Political Science Research & Methods, and International Journal of Communications. My work has also contributed to reporting at the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Aljazeera, Reuters, and CBC News.
I am currently the digital lead for the Canadian Media Ecosystems Observatory project at McGill University's Center for Media, Technology, and Democracy. I was previously a research fellow with Joan Donovan's TaSC team at Harvard. Prior to that I was a research fellow at the Citizen Lab, at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, an Open Technology Fund information controls research fellow, and a research fellow at Princeton University's Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, the Middle East Initiative (Harvard Kennedy School - Belfer Center), and the University of California at San Diego's Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation. I hold a PhD in Economics from Brown University (2015) and often consult for the World Bank.
CONTACT/INFO:
Email: alexei.abrahams@mcgill.ca or alexei_abrahams@alumni.brown.edu
Twitter: @Kalamburshki
Github: @alexeiabrahams
BOOK PROJECT:
Social Media Observatory (under contract at No Starch Press, est. 2024/5)
WORKING PAPERS:
Why Don't People Recognize Structural Violence? Psychological Biases and Narrative Remedies
(with Wendy Pearlman)
Social media and and the Palestinian struggle: Between Mobilization and Movement
(with Dana El Kurd and Nasir Almasri)
When journalism is turned off: Evaluating the (disinformation) consequences of the Meta news ban in Canada
(with the Canadian Media Ecosystem Observatory team)
Home-grown sectarianism or imported political polarization? Evidence from social and news media on Lebanon
(with Haaya Naushan, Andrew Leber, and Noura Aljizawi)
Empire Impossibility Theorem: A Difficulty in the Concept of International Welfare
(with Haaya Naushan)
A Neuroeconomic Theory of Self-Control
(with Haaya Naushan)
Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Toxicity, Opacity, and Agency Conflicts on Social Media
(with Haaya Naushan)
PUBLICATIONS:
The Wretched of Political Science and the Fanonian Shift
(in The War on Gaza and Middle East Political Science, POMEPS Studies 51, 2024)
How the news cycle misses the predominant violence in Israel-Palestine
(+972 Magazine, February 2024)
The Canadian Information Ecosystem
(with the Canadian Media Ecosystem team, November 2023)
(with the Canadian Media Ecosystem team, August 2023)
Donetsk Don't Tell: 'Hybrid War' in Ukraine and the Limits of Digital Influence Operations
(Journal of Information Technology and Politics; with Lennart Maschmeyer, Peter Pomerantsev, and Volodymyr Yermolenko)
Measuring the (in)security of Palestinian civil society websites
Click here to read a Brill blog post summarizing the findings
Click here to listen to a podcast episode summarizing the findings
(with Etienne Maynier; Middle East Law & Governance, October 2022)
How civilian attitudes respond to state violence: Lessons from the Israel-Gaza conflict
(with Sami Miaari and Amit Loewenthal, Conflict Management & Peace Science, Spring 2022)
Hierarchy Over Diversity: Influence and Disinformation on Twitter
(with Gabrielle Lim; Chapter 7 in Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy, McGill-Queen's University Press, Spring 2022)
Make it Trend! Setting Right Wing Media Agendas Using Twitter Hashtags
(with Gabrielle Lim and Joan Donovan; Chapter 7 in The Social Media Debate: Unpacking the Social, Psychological, and Cultural Effects of Social Media, Routledge, Spring 2022)
The Web (In)Security of MENA Civil Society and Media
(in Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East, POMEPS Studies 43, 2021)
Social media manipulation in the MENA: Inauthenticity, Inequality, and Insecurity
(with Andrew Leber; in Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East, POMEPS Studies 43, 2021)
Geospatial Research in Settings of Contested Sovereignty
(with Diana Greenwald; APSA MENA Politics Newsletter, Apr 2021)
Hard Traveling: Unemployment and road infrastructure in the shadow of political conflict
Click here for POMEPS podcast summarizing the findings
(Paper of the Year 2022-23 at Political Science Research & Methods, Mar 2021)
Saudi Twitter blew up with support for the crown prince. How much of it is genuine?
(with Andrew Leber; Washington Post, Mar 2021)
(with Andrew Leber; International Journal of Communication, Feb 2021)
Coordinated Behavior in Libya’s Regional Disinformation Conflict
(with Joey Shea; Lawfare, Feb 2021)
(with Joey Shea; Just Security, Oct 2020)
Repress / redress: What the 'war on terror' can teach us about fighting misinformation
(with Gabrielle Lim; Misinformation Review, July 2020)
Triadic Coercion: Israel's Targeting of States that Host Non-State Actors
(book review; Mediterranean Politics, June 2020)
Middle East Twitter bots and the covid-19 infodemic
(with Noura Aljizawi; Workshop Proceedings of the 14th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, June 2020)
(Open Technology Fund Blog, May 2020)
Framing a murder: Twitter influencers and the Jamal Khashoggi incident
(with Andrew M. Leber; Mediterranean Politics, Apr 2020)
Monopolization of violence in the Palestinian struggle
(Journal of Defence and Peace Economics, Feb 2020)
Regional Authoritarians Target the Twittersphere
(Middle East Report, Dec 2019)
Social media manipulation during the Gulf Crisis (2017-present)
(with Andrew Leber; Review of Middle East Studies, Dec 2019)
Kushner's Technocratic Vision and the Unlearned Lessons of Fayyadism
(Middle East Report, Oct 2019)
Statebuilding versus development in Palestine and beyond
(LSE Middle East Blog, October 2019)
We analyzed the Twitter firestorm around Ilhan Omar's comments on 9/11. Here's what we found.
(with Andrew Leber; ThinkProgress, April 2019)
Not Dark Yet: The Israel-PA principal-agent relationship, 1993-2017
(Chapter 7 in Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents, edited by Eli Berman and David A. Lake, Cornell University Press, Spring 2019. It is posted here by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.)
(with Nancy Lozano-Gracia and Christopher Oram; Remote Sensing of Environment, June 2018)
Click here for working paper version
Click here to access deblurring code
Click here to view presentation slides
A plague of Twitter bots is roiling the Middle East
(with Marc Owen Jones; Washington Post, June 2018)
Strategy, Unity, and Coercion: Lessons from the Palestinian Struggle
Click here for working paper version
(review essay in Mediterranean Politics, Sept. 2017)
UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS:
Monopolies of Violence? How Insurgent Threats Can Motivate Accountable Governance
(with Brandon Merrell; presented at APSA 2018, SPSA 2019, ISA 2019, and MPSA 2019)
Bladerunning the GCC: a hashtag-based anomaly detection approach to propaganda bots in the Arabian Gulf (2017-present)
(with Marc Owen Jones)
Media coverage: Al-Jazeera, WaPo-Monkey Cage, NYTimes, BuzzFeed
King Makers and Peace Breakers: International Intervention and Post-War Violence
(with Brandon Merrell; presented at ISA 2019 and MPSA 2019)
The Secrecy Gambit: Clandestine Power Shifts and Preventive Conflict
(with Brandon Merrell)